A New Face

So... we've officially changed our blog address. Check it out! :)

angiony.co.cc

Separation Anxiety

First off, the one with separation anxiety is not me. That should clear up any confusion at the start.

This is not Jasper. But his eyes look like this...

It's poor Jasper. :( You see, on Wednesday Sophie left with Mom and her friend to drive up to Provo, where she had a connecting drive down to Las Vegas with Dan, but the layover is until this morning. Hehe. Either way, Sophie left on Wednesday. And poor, poor Jasper.

I thought he was fine on Wednesday - he played with me all day, with Isabelle (our standard poodle who got over her separation anxiety years ago), with the rest of the family, and all that jazz. Happy puppy = happy owners. He seemed great.

Until bedtime. Jasper and Sophie always slept together, one strewn randomly on top of the other. But this was the first time ever in Jasper's whole life that he slept alone. And he didn't like it. Like, an-hour-and-a-half-of-crying didn't like it. But Angie and I held fast, were firm, and didn't reward his whining with picking him up and cuddling with him (though we wanted to). Even though it was 1:30 in the morning. Ugh.

That was Wednesday night. Yesterday he was very clingy, so I played with him all day. He followed me around all day, like a puppy (hahaha). And again at night he whined, but only for about 30 minutes this time. We thought he was getting better.

We woke up this morning to find he went potty multiple times in his crate last night. Supposedly with separation anxiety puppies will go all over the place, so this is like a textbook example. And today he's like MEGA CREEPY DON'T-LEAVE-ME-OR-I'LL-DIE puppy. So, after trying to run the energy out of him (impossible), and seeing that he wouldn't take his eyes off of me long enough to even take one bite of his food, I left him in his pen so he would eat.

He's been crying for about 30 minutes right now, but I think it's more important that he realize that there's food sitting right next to him in the otherwise empty room and he'd do better eating it. His stomach has been rumbling so loudly today that he would even stop what he was doing and look behind him at his midsection with a look like "What on earth could that be?!?" on his face. So, I though that that would be better for him, to eat, than me being there. I could be wrong.

Any of you feel like putting on the Doggie Psychologist mantle and give some advice? I'm all up for advice - I've been googling Puppy Separation Anxiety for a while now, and could use some advice. :)

Hey, he stopped barking!!! :) Now to check on his food...

Weatherizing

For those of you that know me well (and some of you who don't know me too well), I am an absolute fanatic about the weather. You know, the subject that strangers normally turn to when they don't want to create any social commitment, or acquaintances talk about to patch over an awkward situation.

In those circumstances I am in my element. Not the awkward situations, but the weather conversations! For the longest time (meaning, most my pre-college existence) I wanted to be a meteorologist (actually it was a Tornado Chaser when I was a kid). I even considered Oklahoma University over BYU because of its excellent meteorology program and its emphasis on Mesocyclonic Development.

Oh, those words get my heart beating fast.

Mesocyclones...cold and warm fronts...

upper-level low pressure systems...lenticular clouds...

...Ahem. Ok, back to the subject at hand.

Either way, this last month has been an excellent month for weather-watching on my part. Let me tell you what's been going on.

Well, about a month ago we had tons and TONS of rain. Like, more rain than I've ever seen in a week (except in Costa Rica). At our house we only had 7 inches or so in the week, but where we used to live in Benbrook got over 11 inches of rain! That's a TON!!! Like, almost 3 times the annual average in Las Vegas! IN A WEEK!

It rained so much that Nature forgot it was September and threw North Texas back to March, complete with waving grass and fresh flowers blooming everywhere (but sorry, Nature forgot basketball). A couple weeks after that, Nature decided to go on vacation to Ireland, and took us with her.

Day after day it was cloudy, cool, and wet. Not really rainy, but just wet. Lots of mist, fog, drizzle, light rain, and a breeze.

Finally, it just got cold. We had thunderstorms on Monday night/Tuesday morning, and suddenly it became winter. Overnight. High temperatures barely climbing into the 50s, then back down into the 40s at night.

So, we're freezing. And it's cloudy, so we're depressed. No, not really. But it could happen. I guess this is what it's like living in Portland, or anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest. I don't think I could handle it.

So, I'm hoping things brighten up here (literally) in the next couple days, and that something more exciting happens so I don't have to revert to blogging about the weather. But don't get me wrong. I enjoy it. So for your sakes let's hope something more exciting happens.

Hopefully we'll be back soon... ;)

Puppies are like baby-trainers

Well, sort of. I guess since I've never had a baby (haha) I can't quite make the comparison, but it seems to me that having the responsibility of providing the protection, care, feeding, and (heavens) potty excursions of 2 5 lb defenseless creatures is a step closer to parenthood than just reading books about it. But, that's just me.

Yesterday was a case in point. I was sick (curse you, unknown virus!!) and generally not happy. I woke up, fed the puppies, gave them their meds (they're sick, too) and took them out to go potty. Mom and Dad were thinking of buying a new dining room set, so I was going to tag along with them all the way to Dallas to offer moral and physical support. Well, 30 minutes before we were planning on leaving, Dad wanted to leave. I stuffed (with as much love as possible) the puppies into their kennel and decided it would be like church: they be inside for about 3.5 hours and they'll be fine. It was just before 9am, and we'd be back by noon. So we did that.

Well, we ended up not getting the dining room set (awkward situation generated by the seller's lack of integrity), but we did go to an Antique Mall and found a table doohickey for the entryway. That was after we ate lunch at Arby's. And before we went to the storage unit and loaded up the formerly empty 14-ft trailer. And before we stopped by a friend's house to pick up a rogue chainsaw.

Starting at about 10:30 I could not stop thinking about poor Sophie and Jasper. How were they feeling?? Had they gone potty all they could before I packed them away? Were they feeling ignored? Were they going potty right now?!? These are things you have to think about! In between short dozing episodes I was just worrying to death about the puppies.

We finished with the chainsaw rescue at 1:20pm, by which time I was sure the puppies had chewed themselves to pieces out of boredom. We got home about 1:45 and I rushed inside, opened the kennel, grabbed the puppies, ran outside, and nearly tossed them into the yard while screaming "GO POTTY!!!". They did not disappoint. Within 2 seconds both did the l o n g e s t pee I had ever seen them do.

Is it strange to be full of pride and gratitude that your puppies chose (yes, it was a decision, I'm sure of it) to stretch their bladders and colons to the limit rather than wallow in their own excrement? Call me weird, but I was proud of them. :)

So, I think having puppies is a preview of coming attractions. Not that we'll have to worry about stuffing kids into a cage, but just the planning that goes into any outing whatsoever. Granted, we can leave the puppies home alone for a couple hours at a time while they're sleeping (heaven forbid we do that with a baby), but still. This is more than I thought it would be.

But it's worth it. :)

Finally! :)

I have absolutely no idea why I haven't blogged in the last 2 weeks. It's not like I'm employed or anything. But for some reason, instead of taking advantage of all my free time I end up filling my day with random unproductive activities that make me feel really, really lazy. (bleh)

But days have been a little more exciting since these two came along.

Everyone, meet Jasper and Sophie.

They're our brand new adorable Boston Terrier PUPPIES!! (Or, as my mother-in-law calls them, her new grandbabies).

They came from the same litter but we actually got Sophie for my family at home. There are hardly any boston breeders in Las Vegas, so we made a deal. If Anthony and I bought and housetrained Sophie for my family, then we would get to keep Jasper! Pretty sweet deal.

Well, we have like a bazillion pictures/videos of them, so I had to narrow them down for you all.
(alert: I seriously almost typed y'all at the end of that sentence... what's happening to me?!)

Jasper has the blue collar and floppy ears, and Sophie has the red collar and pointy ears.

Just LOOK at that face!! (sigh)... I think we're in love.

The Ozarks

(Ugh! It has been a battle to get this thing posted! I think every website I used refused to work for me. First blogger, then picasa, and this morning it was photobucket! Sorry for the long wait. Sheesh...)

For a week in August we vacationed in Arkansas with old family friends Paul and Crystal. Their house is beautiful and their 40 acre property is to die for. The weather was pretty much perfect (except for a rainstorm Thursday morning) and we had so much fun!

Here's a quick list of the things we did.

1. Shooting - the whole family participated!

2. Boating - which included swimming, jet skiing, and riding tubes.

3. Eating and lounging on the back patio - a very important aspect of the vacation. You can see the lake from the patio in the bottom left photo.

4. Silver Dollar City - a theme park with an old southern theme: Roller coasters, handmade leather, knives and pottery, homemade honey and a petting zoo :)

AND

5. Lambert's - home of throwed rolls (they literally throw them)

Anthony's disclaimer: He's hardly in any of the pictures because he was behind the camera. What a good boy. :)

It was an amazing week and the Henry's were so hospitable and generous. Can't wait to go again next year!

Not Arkansas yet people...

Ok, couldn't help myself. Angie's gonna post tomorrow (hopefully) about Arkansas, but I couldn't help but quickly blog about tonight's events.

Out here in the country, living in a geographical anomaly (20 minutes from everywhere!!), we don't get city trash service like city folk. We did order a dumpster and people to come I think once a week or every 2 weeks, or maybe just when we tell them to, but the dumpster hasn't arrived. In the meantime, we've been collecting more and more garbage, mainly from the unpacking and moving stuff (tons of moving paper, plastic bags/wrapping, cardboard boxes, paper kitchen products, etc.). Also the previous owners left a lot of food that presumably went straight from the fridge during their reign into trashbags left in our garage until today. Oh boy, did it smell. And I won't mention the maggots. ...whoops...

Either way, the only option we had was to burn everything.

So we did.



Well, it wasn't that big. But it was big. And HOT. Like, ridiculously hot. Like, run around frantically spraying water on EVERYTHING that could possibly ignite (meaning everything but the dirt) within a 50 ft radius. Seriously. I couldn't stand within 20 ft of the fire without feeling like this guy.

Now it's all good, after running around with a shovel making sure the embers wouldn't start The Great Azle Fire or anything, and after digging a moat around the entire fire and filling it with water.

So, even though trash burning isn't exactly my cup of tea, when faced with trash burning or mounting garbage (that smells like rotting meat), I'll take trash burning. I guess this is country life...

Ok, back to normal programming. Expect an Arkansas post pretty soon...